Family portrait
by phppsmss
Summary: Troubles start when a passerby mistakes Hitsugaya as Matsumoto's son during an Xmas expedition with Ichigo and Rukia in the real world.


This was supposed to be a Christmas fic but it was delayed.

_**-One shot-**_

_**Disclaimer: You know the mantra**_

**Her** taichou was at it again, all he did was work, work, and work.

Granted, they were dispatched to the real world to exterminate Aizen and his cronies aka Anrcars thus paperwork would swell if left unattended. Yet the minute they entered Orihime's abode, her taichou began to hole up in a room to tackle paperwork.

Grouchy from excess paperwork, he ordered her on patrol dashing her hopes of Christmas shopping during this festive season. There were sales everywhere damn it!

It did not occur to Matsumoto that as a vice-captain, she should be alleviating her taichou's workload. Nope. She was currently whining on what a big meanie her taichou was.

As luck had it, she overheard Rukia and Ichigo planning a Christmas shopping trip a few days later. Desperate to escape from patrol duty, she jumped at the chance for freedom.

-----------------

**Hitsugaya** was not a happy captain. He was dragged out of the room by his utterly useless vice captain despite his violent protests and failed attempts to flee.

It just sucked to be short.

The vertically challenged captain had no love for paperwork. Yet those paperwork from hell, literally, could accumulate to alarming levels within a short period of time if left untouched and Hitsugaya had absolutely no desire of passing on due to paperwork overload.

He was only 150 years old, too _young_ to die _again_.

Sometimes, he just did not know why he took up this job in the first place.

His vice-captain, with little sense of responsibility residing within her, was currently towing him along the snowy streets of the city, trailing far behind Ichigo and his savior.

Christmas in the human world was such a boisterous affair, with crowds, noise and flashing lights mulling the streets. Back in soul society, it was a more toned down event with Ukitate flooding captains with gifts and disgraceful sake parties held behind closed doors. It was on that particular day where Hitsugaya relished a moment of silence, staring into the snow outside as Hyorinmaru roamed freely in the icy night sky.

"Taichou! Isn't that so pretty?" Matsumoto jabbed the display excitedly.

"Matsumoto! You should be on constant vigilance and not –"

"Oh look! This one looks really good too!" Matsumoto squealed, totally ignoring Hitsugaya's reprimand.

Hitsugaya sighed. His vice-captain had long forgotten their initial mission of hunting down Aizen.

The four of them entered a large shopping complex and Ichigo turned to face the duo, giving them a hesitant look. He still found it unbelievable that the stoic captain had actually agreed to tag along, in courtesy of Matsumoto.

"Okay. Rukia and I will do our Christmas shopping and I suppose both of you will be comfortable on your own?"

"Of course!" Matsumoto chirped as she hugged her scowling captain.

Ichigo spared the duo once last glance before getting dragged off by Rukia. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, warning signs flashing in bright neon lights, hinting of impending trouble.

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"**Taichou**, this looks sssssooooooooooooooooooo cute on you!" Matsumoto gushed as she pinned the shirt onto Hitsugaya.

Hitsugaya scowled once more as he struggled to free himself from her grasp. It was embarrassing enough when Matsumoto dragged him to shop. It was a greater insult when such clothes were taken from the children section, sporting horrendous trimmings, lace and ribbons.

Luckily, there was no one within hearing distance of the duo or eyebrows would be raised at the lady's address towards the kid.

As Hitsugaya managed to break free from Matsumoto's onslaught, he realized that someone was watching them from afar. Training his eyes on the culprit, Hitsugaya found her anything but pleasant.

The culprit was one of those short, nosy middle age ladies with beady eyes who loved to poke their noses into anything and everything. Hitsugaya had experiences with such gossip mongers in Rukongai when he was little and it was safe to say that those were not fantastic memories.

The said culprit was approaching them at a steady speed thus setting off alarm bells in the short taichou's head. Matsumoto on the other hand was too distracted with her shopping.

"Is he your son?"

Matsumoto dropped the shirt with a loud _thud_ as Hitsugaya froze with shock. He practically needed to staple his mouth shut to keep his mouth from hanging. The absurdness of the question was appalling. Couldn't she see the stark difference between the hair colours? There was something seriously wrong with her eyes.

"Of course he is!" Matsumoto exclaimed, thinking that this was an excellent opportunity to execute her revenge for all those work her taichou had dumped on her, "Toushirou, say hello to aunty."

"She isn't my mother!"

A sad expression surfaced on Matusmoto's face though Hitsugaya did not miss the evil glint in her eye.

"Kids these days have no respect for their parents."

The middle age lady nod in understanding as she proceeded to ask about his hair.

"Dyed it. He went against my wishes and came back looking like an old man!" Matsumoto began to wail, stating her inability as a mother and how rebellious Hitsugaya was.

"It's perfectly natural!" Hitsugaya was seething now yet the two women seemed to ignore him completely as Matusmoto carried on with her sob story.

"…and it was such a difficult labour…"

Matsumoto sniffed for added effect.

_I will kill Matsumoto! Ban her from drinking, dump a whole load of paperwork on her, order her to baby-sit Yachiru…_

Hitsugaya's thoughts became morbid as he devised ways to torture his vice-captain slowly and painfully. His anger did not dissipate though, as the sob story that Matsumoto was rambling became more dramatic; she almost died from childbirth.

With all that anger stored within that small body, Hitsugaya knew it was not healthy thus he exploded, like he always did.

"Matsumoto! You- ow!" Hitsugaya winced as his head was at the receiving end of an umbrella.

The middle age lady waved her umbrella at Hitsugaya threateningly, "You should not address your mother like that! She suffered so much for you. The least you can do is to show her some respect!"

Matsumoto poured out her cliché speech as she pulled Hitsugaya into a crushing embrace. "He's my son after all. I will always love him no matter what."

The nosy lady gave a grave sigh, truly saddened at the addition of another bad egg into the society.

Amidst the suffocation, Hitsugaya wondered how his vice-captain could cook up such hair raising comments on the spot. The logical part of his mind told him to shut his trap in order to avoid getting hit.

"Is he… you know…" The lady asked in a slight whisper, "Such cases usually occur in single parent families."

Matsumoto plastered a huge smile, "Of course not! In fact the entire family came out for Christmas shopping today." She pointed at Ichigo, "My husband is currently at the gifts section."

Hitsugaya gave a loud snort. An Ichigo-Matsumoto pairing? How bizarre.

It was enough to fool the nosy parker though, as she spotted the resemblance between both husband and wife. Her gaze traveled to the black-haired girl next to him.

"That's Rukia, his _nanny._"

"She is not my nanny!" Hitsugaya replied indignantly.

Matsumoto gave a sickeningly sweet smile as she clamped his mouth shut, deliberately ignoring his killer stare, "My son thinks that he is too old to have a nanny."

Thus the two ladies traded stories again, while Hitsugaya fumed away resisting the urge to turn them into ice. That was until a certain black head came into view.

"There's a message from soul society. Hitsugaya-taichou, Mats-" Rukia's eyes widened as she suddenly realized a stranger in their midst. The severity of the situation hit home when she realized that she had exposed their true identity. Humans were not supposed to know about soul society.

_Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!_

"Taichou? Soul society?"

"Its… it's a role playing game." Matsumoto butted in hurriedly, "Toushirou is a captain, I am a vice-captain and Rukia is a seated officer. Soul society is… my parent-in-laws place. Toushirou got this idea from the television, right Taichou?"

Catching the sly wink that Matsumoto sent, Rukia decided to co-operate with whatever brilliant plan that she had concocted. After witnessing the murderous intent emitting from Hitsugaya, she mistook it as anger directed at her for revealing their identities. Hence Rukia could not be more grateful for this timely and ingenious lie to save her skin.

"Hitsugaya taichou got his idea from this cartoon called er… Bleach. He has been really enthusiastic about role playing certain characters so we decided to play along." Rukia hurriedly coughed out an excuse.

The lady looked mildly surprised, "I see your family is really into this role playing game."

Rukia gave a forced laugh as she ruffled her hair sheepishly. Glad that they managed to avert a huge diaster, she made a quick getaway as she quickly excused herself.

Hitsugaya on the other hand was steaming. With stress accumulating more than he could manage, Hitsugaya finally snapped and icy reiatsu flooded the shopping centre with far too much vigor. The temperature plunged, rendering the heating facilities useless. Light snowing outside became a blizzard in split seconds.

The lady noticed this as well for icicles were forming on the umbrella and a steady stream of white wispy air became apparent.

"My, it's getting rather cold." The lady rubbed her palms together, " I better get going."

Picking up her shopping bags, she gave Hitsugaya a hard stare, "You better listen to your mother young man or you will regret it!"

Hitsugaya returned with an icy glare, unnerving the lady in the process. Was it her imagination or was his eyes glowing? It was rather creepy.

Soothing her nerves as she dismissed it as a fluke, she bid Matsumoto goodbye as she took her leave.

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**Ichigo **was pretty confused. On the way back home, everyone was acting really strangely. Matsumoto, smug and all, was keeping her distance from her captain which was highly unusual considering that she was usually bestowing crushing hugs to Hitsugaya.

Rukia was looking immensely relieved for some reason she refused to tell him.

Toushirou had a look which promised death to the next person who dares to approach him. His icy reiatsu was fluctuating wildly and he showed no sign of reining it. It was causing blizzard which made strolling city streets like trekking mountain paths with the thick snow and occasional hail. With that many shopping bags, it proved to be quite a challenge to proceed forward, and Rukia was not helping.

The notion of approaching the short captain to tone down the blizzard was quickly dashed as Ichigo had no desire to turn into an icicle.

His gut feeling was telling him that Matsumoto had a huge role in this. Recalling the earlier encounter with this weird old lady that approached him with a steely glare, telling him that it was his responsibility to keep his rude son in line, he realized that the situation was much more complicated than expected and it was best to shut his mouth.

After all, ignorance is bliss. Wasn't it?


End file.
